Bob Bowman passed away on Saturday, July 13, 2013. We keep his articles online in memory of him and the work he did as one of Texas' leading historians and a long time community leader in Lufkin and East Texas in general.
Bowman, owner of Bob Bowman & Associates, Inc., a Lufkin-based public relations agency which served clients throughout the U.S., was also one of Texas' leading historians and a long-time community leader in Lufkin and East Texas. He and his wife Doris were the authors of more than 45 books about East Texas. He served as a member of the Texas Historical Commission, president of the East Texas Historical Association, and as a member of the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission in 1986 and as a member of the Texas Capital Centennial Commission in 1988. Bowman and his wife Doris were also the only husband and wife to serve as chairs of the Texas Council for the Humanities. Bowman's books won numerous awards, including an award by the Texas Historical Commission in 1976 for 'Land of the Little Angel' as the best history book published in Texas that year. His books also won two 'Book of the Year' awards by the East Texas Historical Association. Bowman also wrote a weekly history column for about 80 East Texas newspapers. Bowman's books spanned all aspects of East Texas, including community and county histories, folklore, travel, restaurants and country cafes, East Texas expressions and idioms, hangings and lynchings, home remedies, East Texas rivers, the Alamo, ghost towns, historic murders, biographies, business histories, the Indians of East Texas, and a series of books on 'The Bests of East Texas.' In Lufkin, Bowman served as a member of the Lufkin City Council for 15 years, as chairman of the Lufkin/Angelina County Chamber of Commerce, as a member and chair of the Board of Trustees for Angelina College, as chairman of the Angelina and Neches River Authority, chairman of the Angelina County Historical Commission, secretary for the Deep East Texas Development Association, the Pineywoods Economic Partnership, and the Texas Forest Industries Council. He also served as director of Red River Radio in Shreveport, La., the Chamber of Commerce in Tyler and the East Texas Chamber of Commerce in Longview. He served as chairman of Lufkin's Centennial Commission in 1982, received the Ralph W. Steen East Texan of the Year awarded by the Deep East Texas Council of Governments in 1982, and was one of the founders of the Southern Hushpuppy Cookoffs in Lufkin. He was also one of the founders of the Pineywoods Foundation of Lufkin, which serves East Texas with charitable contributions. He served as secretary and administrative trustee of the Foundation since its creation in 1982. Bowman also organized the Ottis Lock Endowment for the East Texas Historical Association and served as its chair until 2008. He and his wife also personally funded a number of historical endowments, including the Best of East Texas Award, given annually to East Texas historians since 2006, and funded a series of annual books on East Texas history by other authors. Bowman was the oldest son in the family of Elvis Weldon and Annie Mae Bowman of Diboll, graduated from Diboll High School in 1954 and from Tyler Junior College in 1956. In 1986, he was chosen as Alumnus of the Year at TJC. Bowman's professional career included service in the newspaper field, the forest products industry, and the oil and gas industry. He worked for the Diboll Free Press, the Tyler Courier-Times Telegraph, the Lufkin Daily News, and the Houston Chronicle before joining Southland Paper Mills, Inc., in 1966 as its first public relations manager. He also worked for St. Regis Paper Company at Lufkin before joining Delta Drilling Company of Tyler in 1982 as public relations manager before returning to Lufkin in 1985 to found his own company with his wife Doris. Bowman is survived by his wife, Doris; two sons, Neil of Pearland and Jimmy of Lufkin; his daughter-in-law, Ginny of Pearland; two grandsons, Scott and Matthew of Pearland; sister, Dicy Cunningham of Dallas; and two brothers, Larry of Diboll and Billy of Montgomery.
* Taken from Lufkin Daily News Obituary
Articles
.JPG)